Deicide – Banished By Sin

Most people of a certain age reading this will have a relationship with Deicide that is based on, at least, mixed feelings. To them the band is almost untouchable when it comes to their first four albums, from their 1990-released self-titled debut album to ‘Serpents Of The Light’ from 1997 the band was almost flawless – personal favourites or preferences aside. But the band is also known for questionable live appearances (if they did show up at all) and a few albums of equally debatable quality that were released at the end of their Roadrunner Records contract around the turn of the millennium.

After that all-time low in the Deicide career the release of ‘Scars Of The Crucifix’ (2004) and ‘Stench Of Redemption’ (2006) restored some of the band’s credit, but definitely not all. Many people kept missing the intensity and brutality of yesterday that seemed to be traded for certain, yuck, melodicism. Much of that change in sound was blamed on the addition of Ralph Santolla to the Deicide line-up, not only was he heavily religious – how contradictory can it get? – but his melodic style of playing was certainly not to everyone’s liking and didn’t feel fitting at best. He would continue to do the same with Obituary, also to many people’s discontent, ending up being called the “killer of Death Metal” for a period of time. A label that he was not able to shake off completely before his untimely passing in 2018.

Cutting a long story short, much of all that drama resulted in much of the band’s earlier fanbase feeling rather indifferent for whatever was happening in the Deicide camp afterwards. They might have missed out on a few decent, yet not spectacular albums but one thing is for certain: they were most likely not prepared for a new killer Deicide album in 2024.

Nor was I. Although I have seen Deicide setting the Beyond The Gates festival in Norway on fire last year, I didn’t expect anything from a new album. That idea was only reinforced when it became clear that the band had signed to a completely new label. Yes, there was a bit of hope, mainly fuelled by that amazing performance in Norway, but I was certainly not expecting an album like ‘Banished By Sin’.

Putting stuck-up critics aside, this new album can definitely be labelled as the band’s best performance since 1997’s ‘Serpents Of The Light’. But in fact, it combines the best of all stages of the band’s entire career. The band harkens back to a similar vibe to classic tracks such as ‘Sacrificial Suicide’, but also the melodicism (be it less prominent) of later albums reoccur, even some of the rhythmic grooving nature of tracks like ‘Bible Basher’ of the cursed and doomed ‘Insineratehymn’-album (2000) makes its reappearance.

All in all, this is trademark Deicide with all critical elements being presented in measured proportions. Being it either grooving and catchy riffs, hooky rhythms or the rumbling bass guitar, but above all, Glen Benton seems just to have found back whatever was lost on the previous releases: his true deepfelt anger and total disgust against the word of God. That unique blend of elements, that made Deicide stand out of all other bands in the first wave of Death Metal acts, was something that I felt was missing on all records after ‘Serpents Of The Light’.

For sure I am aware that Deicide will forever be a band that causes both controversy and discordance amongst Death Metal fans and this new album will not change any of that. There most definitely will be people disliking this album, maybe because of that bit of melodicism that is still present, maybe even because of the digitally created artwork and some will even hate it because Benton’s claim that Death Metal musicians are increasingly start to look like they are in Weezer instead. Either way, when you try to strip things down to the essential part of it all, the music, then ‘Banished By Sin’ is a total banger of Death Metal record.